At Expo 2020 we shipped a Unity-based 3D car demo for Kia and an iPad app for Hyundai's pavilion visit, both on unforgiving deadlines, both in front of audiences that don't give second chances. Here's what those projects taught us about interactive activations.
The first three seconds decide everything
On an expo floor you're competing with everything else in peripheral vision. An activation has roughly three seconds to make someone stop. That means motion, scale and an obvious "what do I do here". Instructions are a design failure.
If people need an explanation before they can interact, the experience has already lost its most important moment.
Build for the worst network in the building
Venue Wi-Fi will betray you. Every experience we ship for events runs fully offline first; the network is for analytics and content updates, never for the core experience. This single decision has saved more launches than any other.
- Offline first.The core interaction must keep working without venue connectivity.
- Fast interaction.Remove unnecessary loading states between the visitor and the experience.
- Analytics second.Sync measurement and content updates when connectivity is available.
- Test on site.Real event conditions reveal issues a studio environment never will.
Make it travel
The on-site audience is the smallest audience. The real reach is the photo someone posts, the clip the brand team cuts that evening. We design every activation with its own camera moment and pair it with online campaigns so the experience outlives the event floor.
An activation that doesn't change what people do next is just an expensive screen. Plan the follow-through before you plan the wow.
The strongest activation keeps working after the visitor walks away.
